


00:00:00

by killerqueer



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Bill is a disaster, Canon Timeline but Pennywise didn't happen, M/M, Soulmates, no pennywise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-22
Updated: 2018-01-22
Packaged: 2019-03-08 02:05:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13448235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/killerqueer/pseuds/killerqueer
Summary: Bill Denbrough wakes up the morning that the timer on his wrist is going to go off, sure that the day is going to go perfectly. He's awake in time for class, he's going to meet his soulmate and things are going to be great. Instead, he spills coffee all over himself and slams into a group of three people just as the timer goes off. It could be the cute guy from his Anthropology class but it could also be one of his two friends, one of whom looks pretty annoyed with him. He decides not to stick around to find out.





	00:00:00

**Author's Note:**

  * For [THE_Backwards](https://archiveofourown.org/users/THE_Backwards/gifts).



> Back with another secret santa gift, this time a pinch hitter gift for hellhearts on tumblr! I hope you enjoy it, love!

When Bill wakes up on the morning of January 22nd, 1996, he can feel a smile spreading over his face before he even opens his eyes. His heart is practically thrumming with excitement, which is entirely abnormal for a Monday morning, but this is hardly an average Monday. Today is _the_ Monday. The most important Monday of his life probably.

Today is the Monday that he is going to meet his soulmate. The person who will love him and care for him unconditionally. The person he can be with on holidays instead of the family he has back home who couldn’t care less whether he’s there or not, and the person who will be there for him when he needs them. The person he can do all of that for in return.

Bill normally hates mornings. He would slam his hand on the snooze button of his alarm clock a good 5 times, barely drag himself out of bed in time to make it to his creative writing class on time, and then slough his way through that first class until he could get his hands on some coffee.

This morning though, he was awake before the alarm even went off in the first place. He had an outfit hung up next to his bed that he had excitedly picked out the night before (despite his roommate and best friend Richie’s incessant mocking), and he all but leapt out of bed, grabbing his shower caddy as he did so. Sliding his flip flops on, and grabbing his keys, he makes his way into the bathroom for a rare morning shower.

Today is going to be a good day, he thinks to himself as he glances down at the blinking clock on the skin of his wrist that reads **_04:08:22_ **.

**_04:08:21_ **

**_04:08:20_ **

**_04:08:19_ **

The hot water beats down on him as he tears his gaze away from his wrist to rub his shampoo into his hair and tries to imagine what his soulmate must be like.

Those thoughts carry Bill out of the shower, into his room, where Richie is blinking blearily at him and wagging his eyebrows suggestively as Bill pulls his clothes on. He rolls his eyes at his roommate, but can’t help the small private smile he feels sneaking onto his features when Richie shoots him some double finger guns, with a tired:

_“Go get ‘em tiger!”_

With his hair perfectly combed to look just the right amount of put together but still somewhat grungy and disheveled (that he usually attained by rolling out of bed and not doing anything to it), and his favorite flannel pulled on, with the cuffs of his jeans stuffed into his Docs, he was ready.

**_03:42:56_ **

He waves to Richie as he makes his way out of the building, eyes peeled, and brain on high alert. He knows it’s ridiculous to be searching right now but he can’t help it. He still has - he looks down…

**_03:38:31_ **

...four hours, five minutes, and 31 seconds (28 seconds now), before he’ll meet his soulmate. He’s not going to meet them on his walk to the campus coffee shop, he reminds himself. He knows he should just be glad he’s awake in time to get coffee _before_ class for once. His heart is racing though, and he can practically feel his blood pumping through his veins as he waits in line, tapping his foot impatiently.

When his coffee (two creams, three sugars) is in his hand, he looks down again.

**_03:27:29_ **

He looks at his regular watch on his other hand.

**_07:56:34_ **

He’s going to be late for class.

_Shit._

It’s just his luck that as he races across campus to the Liberal Arts building, his coffee sloshes over the rim and spills down his sleeve and across his chest. He can’t help but stop in his tracks, frozen for a moment, before forcing himself along. He won’t have time between his first and second block to make it back to his dorm. He should just be glad he’s wearing a red flannel. You can still see the stain but it’s not so bad, right?

He makes it to class moments after the professor has begun speaking, and winces apologetically at the cold stare he receives from the front of the room. He takes his seat anxiously and glances at both wrists.

 **_03:12:21_ ** reads the soulmate clock.

 ** _08:01:26_** reads the watch.

He sinks into his chair and tries not to take the criticism of his professor and peers too personally when they start doing peer critiques. He knows they’re never going to appreciate his horror stories and while he would usually get angry, he has other things to worry about today.

He practically races out of the classroom when the period ends, rushing to his compulsory math class and sitting down in his seat.

**_01:38:18_ **

The longer the day goes on the more anxious he becomes. The fluttering in his chest becomes a hammering. The thoughts about who his soulmate might be shift from thinking about them cuddling together and eating takeout to thoughts of them taking one look at him and walking away. Looking at him and thinking of him the same way his parents think of him, which is essentially nothing.

The coffee stain is bothering him more and more and the more he looks at it the bigger and more obvious it seems.

Maybe he’ll have time to run back to his dorm and change before going to the dining hall?

He looks down again.

**_01:07:46_ **

He’s already missed the first half hour of the class from his anxiety spiral and math has never been his strongest subject. Instead of trying to catch up he begins to doodle in the margins of his math homework.

He draws Richie, and he draws Bev. His first kiss and his first crush respectively. The two people who have been with him through everything. He draws Bev’s soulmate, Ben, across from her, the two of them gazing at each other from opposite margins of what are supposed to be his math notes.

He draws the cute guy from his next class after lunch who he’s never spoken to or actually met in his life but has definitely stared at from across the room more times than he’d like to admit. He reminds himself that he’s not at all disappointed that his countdown isn’t set to end during that class because whoever he’s going to meet in…

**_00:43:21_ **

...Forty nine minutes and twenty one (now nineteen) seconds, is going to be perfect. Is going to be the love of his life and he’s going to be happy.

He scribbles out the tight curls, long beautiful nose, and pointed chin that he had begun to sketch in the center of the page and shoves his pencil into his chest pocket.

Instead he spends the rest of the class tapping his fingers on his desk until his neighbor glares at him, at which point he moves his tapping fingers to his knee, staring sightlessly at the professor and the equations on the board. He’s going to have to ask Richie to show him how the fuck to do these stupid equations before his next class. Forgetting as usual his annoyance at Richie’s impeccably good GPA that he achieves with exactly zero effort or studying, when Richie’s easy comprehension of the material will benefit him.

When the professor begins scribbling the homework and page numbers on the board, signalling the end of the period, Bill quickly scrawls them into his notebook underneath the scratched out drawing of the stranger in his Intro to Anthropology class.

As he shoves his notebook into his bag and runs out of the classroom, he takes another quick glance at his wrist.

**_00:08:27_ **

If he runs, he might just make it in time to change.

So he does. As soon as he’s out the doors of the buildings, he sprints across the quad, past the dining hall, past the science building he’ll have to return to in about an hour or so, past the fraternity and sorority houses, and all the way to the bridge that crosses the small pond in front of his dorm building.

He knows he probably shouldn’t try to run across the narrow bridge, and he’s lost track of how much time is left on the countdown but he’s nothing if not impulsive, and adding to that his desperation to make it back to where he thinks he needs to be (conveniently forgetting that it’s not like he’s going to _miss_ whoever it is), he doesn’t slow his pace.

And runs smack into a group of people who hadn’t noticed him barreling down the bridge until it was too late.

Out of habit, Bill looks down at his wrist.

**_0:00:00_ **

Zero hours, zero minutes, and zero seconds were blinking back at him. Flashing like a taunt as he looked up apologetically at a group of three boys he’s never met before from the spot on the ground where he had fallen.

Three boys he had never met before, but one who he’s definitely seen.

But none of them are looking at their wrists. They’re just looking at him, giving nothing away as they eye him suspiciously, one of the boys grumbling about how people need to look where they’re going as he kneels down to pick up the books and papers Bill had knocked out of his hands.

“I-I-I…” he struggles to get out, his nerves bringing his stutter back in full force, the way it hadn’t been since his adolescence. He gives up on the word. “Sorry!” he manages to force out. Staring at the curly haired boy from his Anthro class before glancing apologetically at the taller boy to his left, and the the small angry one to his right.

The sight of which has him leaping into action to help him gather his things.

As soon as everything that had fallen to the ground is safely back in the grumpy boys arms, Bill stammers out another apology, and, while he’s not proud of his next action, runs.

He’s out of breath when he returns to his dorm room, only to find Richie sitting at his desk, seemingly having waited for Bill’s return, grinning at him expectantly.

Bill heaves a sigh and turns away from Richie to shut the door.

“So?”

“So what?” he groans, turning back to look at his roommate. He doesn’t want to deal with this. He’s exhausted and the last thing he wants to do is recount the humiliating Bridge Encounter as it’s been deemed in his head, to his childhood best friend.

“So? How’d it go? Who is she? Or he? Or they, you know? I don’t know.”

Bill wishes Richie would stop grinning at him like that.

“I don’t know,” he replies simply, turning around to dump his bag on his own desk before opening his closet door to try to find a clean shirt.

Maybe he shouldn’t bother. Maybe he shouldn’t even leave his room for the rest of the day.

But Richie isn’t going to let it go that easily.

“You don’t know?” Richie asks incredulously, and Bill can hear the humour in his tone. “How do you not know? You’re timer didn’t freeze before it got to zero did it?” he pesters, voice gaining a subtle tone of seriousness at the last question.

Bill freezes at the thought. No, his soulmate is definitely not dead.

He shakes his head ‘no’, but doesn’t turn around.

“Okay, so what happened?” Richie asks, teasing tone back at his voice at the confirmation that Bill’s soulmate is very much alive. “Come to my bosom, Billiam,” he says in what Bill thinks is supposed to be an old British woman’s voice. He can hear Richie coming up behind him before his friend grabs him and drags his head to his bony chest, petting his hair in mock consolation. “Tell Auntie Richie your woes, my dear!”

Bill finally lets out a chuckle at that, yanking his head free from Richie’s grip.

“There were three p-people,” he explains.

“Holy shit, you have three soulmates?” Richie exclaims, eyes practically bugging out of his face. “Why the fuck did you come back here?” Bill almost thinks he looks impressed, but only rolls his eyes and shakes his head in return.

“N-n-no, dumbass,” he groans. “There were three g-gu-guys, and I ran into them...l-literally...and I didn’t see a-a-ny of their wrists before I r-ran away in embarrassment.”

Richie crows with laughter and Bill all but throws himself face first onto his bed, not wanting to watch as Richie clutches his stomach and howls out peals of laughter. He could probably stay here for the rest of the week if he wanted to. He had enough yoghurt in the mini fridge and cereal bars in his desk. He could tell his professors that he’s horribly ill.

He’s so busy contemplating his options of living like a hermit that he doesn’t notice Richie’s laughter has slowed until Richie’s shoving his shoulders impatiently.

“Alright, alright, get up you whiner,” he teases and Bill groans at him, but allows himself to be pulled up. “What’s your plan of action? Now that you know what these guys look like it shouldn’t be _that_ hard to find them.”

“Hide,” Bill says honestly.

“Nope!” Richie replies, cheerfully and Bill glares at him with annoyance. “We’re gonna find them. And you’ve never seen any of them before.”

Bill’s cheeks go pink and his mind is suddenly re-filled with images of the boy from his Anthropology class staring at him with a raised eyebrow. He thinks it might be the first time this guy has _ever_ noticed him, and just his luck, it happened to be because Bill had actually knocked into him and his friends.

He apparently takes too long to answer, because Richie’s face is now taking on a mischievous smile.

“Is it that guy you drew in your history notes?”

Bill’s face goes white as a sheet as he stares at Richie.

“What, I needed to check out some dates so I looked in your notebook. Sue me,” he says, rolling his eyes at Bill before pressing further. “So is it?”

“It m-m-might not be,” he reminds Richie weakly. “It c-could also be e-either of his friends,” he sighs.

“Oh come on!” Richie sighs exasperatedly. “That’s _way_ too big of a coincidence, it’s definitely him.”

“It’s d-definitely not,” Bill snaps, mostly to be contrary, but he can’t help the small voice in the back of his head that says _‘Maybe it is.’_

It’s clear that Richie can tell he’s won the argument though, and it’s not long before Bill finds himself in a fresh shirt with a cereal bar in one hand and a yoghurt cup in the other, telling Richie all about how he’d been staring at the back of this guys head the entire first semester.

“Go get ‘im, Tiger,” Richie calls again with a wink, as Bill leaves the room for the second time that day, this time feeling like he’s marching to his death instead of to class.

He arrives early for once, and thankfully curly haired guy isn’t there yet. He takes a desk in the very back of the room and busies himself with his books. He eventually opens one, pretending to be reading intently as he listens to the rest of the class shuffle in.

He doesn’t look up until the professor begins speaking and when he does, it’s to find curly haired guy blatantly staring at him from a few seats over.

His eyes widen in shock, and he immediately snaps back to his notes, completely missing the smirk on the guys face. He feels like he’s being watched for the rest of the class - in fact, he’s _sure_ he is. He doesn’t think he’s ever gone through the entire hour and a half lecture without looking at the professor or at curly haired guy, but he guesses he’s setting a record today.

It can’t last though. He can feel the stare boring into the side of his head and he knows he’s not going to make it out of the building without being stopped.

So, instead of listening to the lecture, he tries to figure out what to say.

He’s pleasantly surprised when the lecture ends and curly haired guy immediately stands up and walks out the door, seemingly forgetting that Bill ever existed, and he breathes a sigh of relief.

The relief is short-lived however, because the moment he steps over the threshold into the hallway, he finds himself face to face with curly haired guy.

He’s trapped.

“Hi,” curly haired guy says.

“Uh, h-h-hi,” he stammers, cursing his stupid stutter as curly haired guy smiles and sticks out his hand to shake Bill’s own.

His right hand.

His right hand where his sleeve is conveniently and neatly rolled up to the elbow and a flashing **_00:00:00_ ** is sitting there, stark against his skin.

Zero hours, zero minutes, and zero seconds.

He can’t help but stare as he hesitantly reaches his hand out for the handshake, surprised at curly haired guy’s boldness as, instead of shaking Bill’s hand, he grabs his wrist and unbuttons the sleeve of his flannel before pushing it up his arm, revealing Bill’s own flashing **_00:00:00_ **.

“That’s what I thought,” curly haired guy says smugly.

Bill stares astonished, sure his mouth is probably hanging open in the stupidest way, as curly haired guy opens his mouth to speak again, Bill’s wrist still cradled in his hands.

“I’m Stan,” he says, before staring at Bill expectantly.

_Stan._

_Stan Stan Stan Stan Stan._

Bill’s mind chants the name over and over again before he finally forces his own name out in return.

“B-B-Bill,” he says, flushing through his stutter, but relieved that Stan doesn’t seem put off by it.

“Hi Bill,” Stan says, a smirk still playing across his face, though it’s not at all malicious. “You look like you could use a coffee. Do you wanna take a walk?”

Bill smiles. Maybe things weren’t such a disaster after all.

“I’ve h-had enough coffee for today if I’m ho-honest,” he says with a shy smile. “But I’d love to take a walk.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on tumblr! I changed my URL! [@sunflowerstozier](https://sunflowerstozier.tumblr.com)


End file.
